An introduction to Early Indian Madhyamika

·期刊原文
The Emptiness of Emptiness: An introduction to Early Indian Madhyamika
by C. W. Huntington, Jr.,

Reviewed by Frederivk J. Streng

Philosophy East and West
Volume 42, No.2
1992:04
Pp.355-359
( C )by University of Hawaii Press
.

P.355
For scholars who read Buddhist material, the title The
Emptiness of Emptiness has a familiar ring; for others it is
often, at best, a puzzling claim of the "mysterious East."
For both types of readers this book is of interest. For the
latter it is a clear statement of the fact that Buddhist
philosophy arises in a context of "transformative
philosophy," whose goal is comprehensive freedom, and it is a
warning against interpreting emptiness either
P.356
as a nihilist or an essentialist concept. For the former it
provides the first complete English translation of the
Tibetan translation of Candrakiirti's Madhyamakaavataara, an
introductory summary of the ten perfections of the
Bodhisattva Path and an analysis of word usage in the
Maadhyamika school from a Praasa^ngika perspective.
The book is divided into two parts; added to this are
extensive notes (pp. 199-267), bibliography, and index. Part
1 is entitled "Candrakiirti and Early Indian Maadhyamika,"
and Part II is a translation of Candrakiirti's
Madhyamakaavataara, as "The Entry into the Middle Way." The
English translation is extracted from an eleventh-century
c.E. Tibetan translation of Candrakiirti's autocommentary, as
found in the edition by La Vallee Poussin (1907-1912). It is
a joint effort of the author and Geshe Namgyal Wangchen. Part
I (pp. 3-142) contains methodological considerations (chapter
1) , a philosophical analysis of the doctrinal context
(chapter 2), a discussion of language usage in Maadhyamika
(chapter 3), a description of the spiritual significance of
the ten perfections of the Bodhisattva Path (chapter 4), and
an interpretation of the relation between practice and wisdom
in Mahaayaana Buddhist thought by way of comparison with some
contemporary Western deconstructionist reflection (chapter
5) . This review will focus on the hermeneutical and
philosophical discussion of Part I, since it poignantly
raises the issue of understanding the meaning of
philosophical claims made across temporal and cultural
boundaries--a continuing topic of interest to readers of this
journal.
Several hermeneutical concerns that inform this study are
noted in the first chapter. One is the recognition of the
soteriological aim of Candrakiirti's effort. Huntington
states (p. 13): "Maadhyamika philosophy cannot be properly
understood when extracted from the matrix of its
soteriological aims. This is not a novel claim." He then
quotes J. W. de Jong and D. S. Ruegg as scholars who have
recognized this. What he does not say is that this has been
recognized by many Western scholars, and has been a prominent
perception about Buddhist claims for the past two decades,
being found even in most general introductions to Buddhism
during the past decade. A perusal of Western Buddhist Studies
calls into question his claim in the first chapter that there
are only two prevalent models for interpreting Buddhist
thought: the philological model, and the "proselytic" model.
At best, that discussion is an oversimplification of Western
scholarship; at worst, it is an unfortunate distortion of the
Western scholarly concern with Buddhist soteriology.
Huntington's description does not wrestle with various
scholarly positions both within and outside the Buddhist
tradition for justifying and rejecting diverse claims of
"right views," or for explicating different perceptions of
the nature of existence as a necessary condition of achieving
its soteriological aim, perfect liberation.
Another hermeneutical concern is to provide a "holistic
interpreta-

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tion" that requires a crossing "back and forth over the
borders of several jealously guarded disciplines, each of
them defended by a close-knit group of rigorously trained
initiates" (p. 12) . Such an interpretation. Huntington
claims, requires "an application of all aspects of the
Maadhyamika: intellectual, ethical and practical" (ibid.). He
recognizes "some initial,tentative steps already taken by
others" (p. 13); however, several Western scholars--H. B.
Aronson, P. J. Griffiths, and D. 5. Lopez, to name a
few--have gone further than this study to show the
relationship between intellectual, ethical, and experiential
aspects of Buddhist life experiences. The failure to carry
out a "holistic interpretation" was disappointing because the
stages of the ten perfections of the Bodhisattva Path provide
the occasion to describe and analyze the relation between
areas of thought and practice, for example, how "pure
qualities of most perfect morality" are related to "balanced
concentration and cognition," or how "intensive meditative
cultivation" is related to "completely pure intrinsic
qualities of analytic knowledge." Indeed, morality is
summarily discussed in the chapter on the ten perfections
(pp. 70-72) as are generosity,patience, and meditation; but
they remain isolated segments of teaching, the analysis
repeating much of the comparable chapters of the translated
text.
While the two previously indicated hermeneutical concerns
are explicitly stated in the first chapter, they are, then,
not the distinctive feature or this "introduction to early
Indian Maadhyamika." Rather it is another hermeneutical
concern, also introduced in that chapter and elaborated in
the final chapter of Part I, "The Emptiness of Emptiness:
Philosophy as Propaganda." In Huntington's words, "Recourse
to the insights of post-Wittgensteinian pragmatism and
deconstruction provides us with a new range of possibilities
for interpreting The Entry into the Middle Way and other
early Maadhyamika treatises, for what we learn in our
encounter with these texts is in every way a function of the
tools we bring to our study" (p. 9).
From the deconstructionist movement, Huntington selects
Richard Rorty as his prime mentor. Huntington affirms Rorty's
approach to the meaning of a text as "a preeminently Buddhist
hermeneutic and therefore a preferred approach to studying
Buddhist literature" (p. 8). This approach assumes that a
hermeneut--according to a quote from Rorty--"asks neither the
author nor the text about its intentions but simply beats the
text into a shape which will serve his own purpose" (ibid.).
The interpreter--again, quoting Rorty--"is in it for what he
can get out of it, not for the satisfaction of getting
something right" (ibid.). This stance is taken in order to
avoid getting caught in either of the two hermeneutical
models previously described, the "philological" and
"proselytic" models, which, says Huntington, "rely on the
proper application of an approved methodology supposed to
insure access to [a presumed objectively present] tradition"

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(p. 7). The attempt to avoid a method (or methodology) is
also informed by the pragmatist's rejection of any method
that seeks an objective, value-free interpretation of data.
This attempt to locate such a method for an objective
interpretation in modern Western thought, says Huntington, is
itself an expression of the presuppositions of neo- Kantian
scientific rationalism-precisely the presuppositions rejected
by Maadhyamika thought.
The major thrust of Huntington's hermeneutic is to show
that for contemporary deconstructive or pragmatist
philosophers and for Naagaarjuna as interpreted by
Candrakiirti, truth is "a function of what can be put into
practice" (p. 44). Throughout the analysis, two goals of the
Maadhy-amika "radically deconstructive, pragmatic philosophy"
(p. 136) are portrayed: (1) dispelling the reifying
tendencies in language, and (2) eliminating the fear,
suffering, and hate that are produced by attachment to
(false)essentialist notions. The truth of highest meaning is
"the actualization of emptiness, the cessation of all fear
and suffering." (p. 39).
Maadhyamika texts are quoted to justify these pragmatic
soteriological goals as the stated purpose of Maadhyamika
claims; however, Huntington then takes another step to assert
that Maadhyamika reflection uses only a circular
self-justifying procedure when making claims about the nature
of existence--for example, no existent has a
self-substantiated nature--namely, they are justified by
experiencing freedom from fear and suffering. He asserts: "In
the final analysis, the Mahaayana Buddhist conceptual-
ization of the world, epitomized in such central notions
as'dependent origination' and 'emptiness,' must be called
upon to provide its own justification through the freedom
from fear and suffering which it is supposed to yield" (pp.
136-37). This dogmatic assertation is not argued; but it is
consistent with another generalized evaluation: "Any study of
deconstructive philosophy is significant only to the extent
that it contributes to formation of an attitude of
nonclinging" (p. 40). It is not only deconstructionist
philosophy, however, that should have a pragmatic existential
verification procedure. This is suggested when Huntington
asks: "Could it not be that the only legitimate philosophical
work is over and done with when all problems are shown to be
practical problems,and when the paradoxical nature of the
everyday world has been shown to be entirely self-sufficient
as revealed in all actual and possible states of affairs)"'
(pp. 42-44).
The author recognizes that Maadhyamika and contemporary
Western deconstructionist and pragmatist concerns and
positions are not identical. He states: "I have not referred
again and again to the writings of deconstructionist and
pragmatic philosophers because I believe that these modern
thinkers are saying the same thing as the ancient Maadhy-
amika" (pp. 133-134). The differences, however, are not
systematically stated. Huntington does suggest that there is
a "catch" in the pragmatist

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view of William James in that he did not see how deep his
commitment to a substance ontology was (pp. 45-46). Likewise
he criticizes Feuerabend's notion of a "natural
interpretation" for understanding causality (p. 46) .
Nevertheless, Huntington sets his hermeneutical critique--by
positively quoting from Rorty's deconstructionist
position--in a frame-work that juxtaposes metaphysical
concepts and meanings derived solely from a sociolinguistic
context. His interpretation of Maadhyamika is based on a
hypothetical epistemological dualism between an unconditioned
metaphysical reality as a source of meaning, which is
rejected, and a sociolinguistic matrix of meaning. Thus he
concludes: "When its philosophical work is done, the concept
of emptiness dematerializes along with every possible
justification for belief in any reality beyond the
sociolinguistic matrix of everyday experience" (p. 136). Any
reality beyond the sociolinguistic matrix is identified with
an essentialist transcendental substratum, leaving illusory,
conventional truth as identical to enlightened insight into
the nature of existence. He writes:'The soteriological truth
of the highest meaning, as dependent origination and
emptiness, is itself the illusory, conventional truth,
because it necessarily appears in a self-contradictory,
misleading form" (p.110). Such an interpretation, I fear,
reduces Naagaarjuna's famous dictum that there is no
difference between nirvaa.na and sa.msaara (Muulamadhyamakakaarikas
25:19-20) to: there is only sa.msaara.
I find this aspect of Huntington's interpretation
problematical because it confuses the highest meaning of
truth in Maadhyamika with conventional truth. Certainly, both
Naagaarjuna and Candrakiirti deny an essentialist meaning of
nirvaa.na and sa.msaara; these terms do not refer to
entities-in-themselves. Likewise, both use conventional
terms, like "emptiness" and "dependent origination," for the
soteriological purpose of eliminating attachment to concepts,
perceptions, and emotions. However, they also indicate the
intrinsic nature of human experience without providing a
description through a one-to-one correlation between words
and reality. Huntington also seems to affirm this (p. 49),
without recognizing that the reality of dependent origination
makes possible illusion and what is other than illusion:
enlightenment. The difference is suggested when he writes
about different ways of responding to dependent origination,
either in projecting a self- existent reality (in ignorance),
or "without having to make an intervening inference" (p.
111) . The highest truth is--from the Maadhyamika
perspective--known through conventional activity.
Deconstructionist practice and pragmatist concerns may aid in
avoiding metaphysical- absolutist-prone conventional
activity; nevertheless, the reality in which both the highest
truth and conventional truth function can hardly be reduced
to sociolinguistic conditions described by contemporary
deconstructionist and pragmatist philosophers.